Gatemen swept out of CCBL playoffs

FALMOUTH — It had taken nearly the full nine innings for Falmouth to push across a run in its Cape Cod Baseball League series opener against Wareham.

DAN POPKO

FALMOUTH — It had taken nearly the full nine innings for Falmouth to push across a run in its Cape Cod Baseball League series opener against Wareham.

In Game 2, the Commodores didn't wait so long.

Ten batters stepped to the plate in a five-run third for Falmouth to give the Commodores all the offense they needed in a 6-0 victory over Wareham on Thursday night at Guv Fuller Field. With the victory came a best-of-three series sweep and the Western Division title.

As soon as the game was over, left fielder Max White did a running backflip on the way out to the team huddle were all the Commodores joined in to a chant of, "We goin' to the 'ship!"

The Commodores advance to the Cape League championship series despite never climbing past the .500 mark after an 0-7 start to the summer.

The Eastern Division champion Harwich Mariners will host Falmouth in Game 1 of the championship series tonight at 7 at Whitehouse Field.

Falmouth's bullpen began celebrating the trip to the final series a little prematurely, but Andrew Heaney (Oklahoma State) threw a near-flawless seven innings to reward his fellow hurlers' confidence.

Heaney had won his lone start against the Gatemen in early July and repeated the feat on Thursday night, rebounding from his loss to Hyannis is the first game of the playoffs.

"Andrew Heaney was simply special tonight," Falmouth manager Jeff Trundy said of his starter. "He was disappointed after his outing against Hyannis and he wanted to have his last outing here be a special one, and it certainly was."

The lefty struck out seven but began to tire as his pitch count climbed towards its final count of 124 pitches. After walking two in the top of the seventh, Heaney faced a 3-2 count against Game One goat Mott Hyde, who stood at home plate with a chance for redemption.

Instead it was Heaney who came through with the backing of many of the 3,512 fans — including a half-dozen emphatically blowing a vuvuzela beyond the centerfield fence — in attendance, getting the Wareham shortstop looking to strand two runners.

"(Pitching coach) Shane (Wedd) asked me after the fifth, he kind of just gave me the look that said, 'are you alright?' and I said 'I'm fine,'" Heney said. "I appreciate that he left me in and let me work through it, I know it would have been easy to go to the bullpen."

In the first three innings, Heaney looked to be in trouble, letting three men get on but a double play and two guys being caught stealing assured that he face the minimum through three.

"Early in the game I wasn't making great pitches, I was making mistakes and getting away with them," Heaney said.

After Heaney left the mound, any air left in the Gatemen seemed to be taken out of them. It began to manifest it self when speedy leadoff man LJ Mazzilli only took one base on what should have been a easy double after a high pop up dropped down just fair in left field.

While Wareham looked like they were just going through the motions, across the diamond the Commodores looked loose as could be.

As soon as the scoring binge was finished in bottom half of the third, Falmouth reliever Andrew Aizenstadt climbed up on the fence to raise a wrestling championship belt. The crowd behind the Commodores' dugout cheered loudly for the Babson reliever as "The Time is Now" — entrance music for rapper/WWE star John Cena — played over the loudspeaker.

"Hey, those guys do whatever they want, as long as it's not obscene," Trundy said, laughing, of the belt. "When you see teams do well at the end of the year down here usually they really enjoy each other and I think that's just a reflection of that."

Cleanup hitter Jake Rodriguez doubled down the left-field line to get the scoring started in the third, and it didn't stop until leadoff man Billy Ferriter — the ninth hiiter of the inning for Falmouth — singled to left, bringing home Spencer Kieboom.

Wareham starter Luke Farrell got two outs in the inning, but five hits and three runs saw him run from the game after just 2 and 2/3 innings of work. The 6-foot-6 right-hander struggled to locate his curveball and got hit hard when he did put it over the plate.

In two previous starts against the Commodores this season Farrell had gone 1-1, but hadn't gotten past the fifth inning in any start since June 19 — his second appearance of the year.

Every Commodore reached base in the game and only the red-hot Barrett Barnes failing to put one in the hit column. Seven Falmouth batters had a hit in the third inning alone.

Rodriguez was the big run producer for the Commodores, adding a second RBI double in the eighth to his game-winning double in the third, taking the team's postseason RBI lead from Reid Redman in the process.

Team MVP Jeremy Baltz had struggled early in the Commodores playoff run but also had a good day on Thursday, going 3-for-3 with a double and two walks, scoring the second run on Barnes' fielder's choice groundout to short.